Talk:ß

Merged - additional issues to tackle

I've gone ahead and merged Capital Esszett here. There remain a few issues not properly covered:

1. We don't properly explain the alternatives SS or (historically) SZ anywhere that I've noticed (correct me if I'm wrong)
2. Much of the material at Capital Esszett does not strike me as properly sourced
3. How do we integrate the history of the capital form with the history of the character in general? The Hitler thing for the German orthography reform of 1944 deals with both
4. I think the various lists of people who said there ought to be a capital esszett is probably overly detailed and most of them are not significant and could be eliminated.

So these are things we'll need to figure out.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:20, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

On the same note - anyone who was around at the time of the Rechtschreibreform knows there were rumors the esszett was being abolished. In fact, I've had conversations with misinformed "Reformgegner" in the mid 00s who thought it did just that. I wonder if we can find sources on that. Since I'm sure there have been simialr calls over time, we could probably integrate the abolition in Switzerland into such a section.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:52, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Was ß really abolished in Switzerland or did it fall out of use, more like the English þ that was less and less used and replaced with th until it vanished altogether? I mean, was there a pan-Swiss language regulator in that country with all its highly autonomous cantons who ruled that ß should no longer be used from day X onward? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:44, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, at the latest it was recognized as not used there by the Rechtschreibreform. But I don't actually know. Our current passage on is unsourced.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

The Orthography Council's rule § 25 E2 says: "Steht der Buchstabe ß nicht zur Verfügung, so schreibt man ss. In der Schweiz kann man immer ss schreiben." That doesn't even sound like an advice not to use ß, it's a mere possibility (though one that is almost universally made use of). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:12, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Markup

I decided to WP:BEBOLD and (IMO) improve the markup. In articles about glyphs, it risks confusing the reader to render some cases in italic and some in regular. Since this article was last extensively edited to reach FA standard, template:char was introduced to handle these cases where we need to 'isolate' a symbol for inspection, so I have used that where I felt in appropriate. In other cases, I just used single quotes, but in almost every case where italic was being used to 'highlight' a letter, I have changed it to [IMO] a clearer form. This work took rather a lot of time so if anyone is really unhappy with my changes, I would appreciate 'discuss first, revert afterwards' even though WP:BRD says the reverse. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:52, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

LGTM. Some may want to change some or all of the char template to angbr.Spitzak (talk) 21:26, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully I got the balance right between specific grapheme notation {{tl:angbr}} and more open-ended {{tl:char}}. Where I struggled was what to do about ligatures and digraphs: are they graphemes? I came down on the side of no but I don't know what is the norm in professional practice. Anyone? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:29, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your question whether ligatures and digraphs are graphemes: I wouldn't take that too seriously – see next section. ◅ Sebastian 15:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Grapheme → letter

Currently, the lead section calls ß a "grapheme", but that term is only used in the lead section, and only three times, while the term “letter” is used 60 times throughout the article.

Since “grapheme” is less well known than “letter” and doesn't even have the benefit of a clear, universally accepted definition, and because other B-class articles (sorry, couldn't find higher rated articles about comparable topics) such as Æ consistently use just “letter”, I am replacing that term with “letter”. The only passage that could be seen as a justification for its use here was “The grapheme has an intermediate position between a true letter and a ligature. It behaves as a ligature in that it has no separate position in the alphabet...”, but that is WP:OR that contradicts Alphabetical order#Ligatures. (BTW, that was a good example for LEADSEED, too – the links used there are defunct now, but seem to have been just used as a basis for the OR), and I will delete that text. ◅ Sebastian 15:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Nibelungen manuscript

Ermenrîch added a picture showing MHG “z” representing NHG “ß”, adding in the summary “I'm looking for a manuscript one preferably but this will do for now”. We have File:Nibelungenlied manuscript-c f1r.jpg (shown right), of which we could use e.g. “grozer” (line 3), “daz” (line 7) or “geheizen” (line 8). (We have more of that manuscript under commons:Category:Donaueschinger Nibelungenhandschrift C.) Maybe someone could prepare a cut out image with the rest blurred somewhat, as done for File:Mittelhochdeutsche Schreibweise smerzen (Schmerzen).jpeg. Now, which example do we want? ◅ Sebastian 10:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think geheizen or grozer would work very well. I saw that image but I didn't realize it was of such good quality. I was inspired to provide some more context since this article attracts "conspiracy theories" who think the ß is really a ligature of ſs, so I thought expanding on the MHG origins was in order.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:07, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, yes, those WP:OR theories abound – with many claims of “I live in Germany” or “I am a native speaker”, but no reliable sources. In other talk pages there sometimes is a pinned message that summarizes such frequently opined questions, but we can hope that now that you provided a source, we can point to that.

So, I picked “grozer” because I thought it is more likely to be known by a reader who knows German only a little. Then I realized that in your original caption you provided two words, and I thought to do the same it would have been better to use “geheizen”, because “arebeit” would not be translated by its cognate, while “Chriemhilt” only changed her spelling. I didn't do the blurring; maybe we could ask Stilfehler, who did if for the other image. ◅ Sebastian 16:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Blurring is very easily done with GIMP. But if you need help, drop me a line with information (1. which file, 2. whole image or only part of it, 3. which part[s] of the text not to blur, 4. name of the new image file) and I can provide it. --Stilfehler (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think grozer was a great choice SebastianHelm, as its an easily recognized. I don't think two words is necessary, as we can illustrate the spelling without the second word. Now I think some more early modern books or MSS with a clear sz ligature would be a good addition (we have seemingly endless pictures of antiqua ligatures but hardly any Fraktur ones)!--Ermenrich (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

There is a more legibly written “grozer” further down, in the sentence that introduces Dancrât. Maybe we should use that instead? Or, seeing that you now included a picture of “uſz”, maybe we should find a picture of that word, where it is spelled with with “z”? To my surprise, that seems pretty rare in the Donaueschinger Nibelungenhandschrift. The first combination I found of these characters at the end of a word were in 20. Aventure, line 1180. (We don't have that as a picture yet, but the BLB has it; the “duz” is about 3 lines below the middle.) ◅ Sebastian 09:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I think grozer is actually the better choice for the MHG z usage. I only used uß because in the later Middle Ages they start mostly writing sz at the end of words. I’m on the look out now for some clear early print ßs that clearly show the S and z.—Ermenrich (talk) 13:24, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you; so I'll be waiting what you come up with. If it's “groſzer” then I'll change the picture to one of the second occurrence and then either ask Stilfehler to blur it or try that myself. By the way, it's interesting that, while they otherwise used the scribal abbreviation for “er” so often that one might think it was invented for German, they didn't use it in the two examples of “grozer”. Do you have any idea why that might be so? ◅ Sebastian 14:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure why they do that, actually. Some words are more likely to be abbreviated than others "der" for instance (and the spelling "dz" survives into the modern period for "das/dass", cf. also English "ye"), but I think other than that the scribe sort of had free reign to decide when to abbreviate or not. Depending on how good an eye they had they might have been planning out the amount of space needed for the text even (something we see with early modern printing). It's also possible that the abbreviation would have looked too much like just an extra stroke coming off the "z". They do abbreviate "wunders" and "meister" where it might have been clearer.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I've hit the jackpot on relatively clear and high quality images in early Fraktur, so you have your pick of words now. I'll keep "uß" from before just because that text is hard to read and the other instances of ß I've seen so far are not written that way in modern German anyway: (e.g. "erlößt" for "erlöst"). There was an example from Hans Sachs with "herauß" and a few other uses ("Kriegß") but I thought the ones I found are most similar to contemporary German and thus make the best examples. It's just too bad there isn't a case of "groſſes" or something as a contrast (I'm not sure when the rule that ß is written after a long vowel or diphthong was invented, but my guess is it didn't exist until probably the 18th century - hopefully I can find some sources on that).--Ermenrich (talk) 17:35, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Ȥ/ȥ

I would like to draw your attention to article Ȥ which is about a letter that was encoded specifically for Middle High German. What is the reason we don't use it in this article? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, ȥ is actually only used in handbooks and grammars of Middle High German. It's not even very common in normalized texts. There's no real difference in how 'z' was written in Middle High German manuscripts and most editions, despite the fact that it represented two distinct sounds. My preference is therefore not to use it (and I think having a separate character sort of confuses the issue of the appearance of ß, since ȥ is a nineteenth century invention).--Ermenrich (talk) 22:29, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by “normalized texts”? Z with a hook is indeed not common (as Dbachmann already pointed out at Talk:Ȥ#Middle High German in 2007), but tailed z is commonly used for the same purpose – both in handbooks/grammars (e.g. Helm/Ebbinhaus: Abriß der mittelhochdeutschen Grammatik. Tübingen 1973) and in textbooks (e.g. Die Silberfracht – Sprachdenkmäler des Mittelalters, Frankfurt/M. 1967). ◅ Sebastian 08:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Normalized texts refers to edited texts that have had the spelling changes to an idealised MHG spelling that removes all irregularities. My point is this character is a 19th century invention that isn’t relevant to the development of ß and is also not commonly used outside of some handbooks and older dictionaries. The same is true of tailed z, just look at the images from the Nibelungenlied MS above or most editions of it or any other MHG text. That’s why I haven’t used it here.—Ermenrich (talk) 13:11, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

If by “normalized texts” you mean texts like this from Bibliotheka Augustana, then I agree with you. I had regarded that simply as a mere convenience, since it's easier to use just letters that have keys on a keyboard. So, do I understand you correctly that such a transcription is generally considered “normalized”? Do we have (here or on de.wp) any article covering that?

Regarding the tailed z, you can't mean that it is an invention of the 19th century, since it has been used in Kurrent long before, but if you mean that its use for transcribing MHD only dates only that far, then you're probably right. ◅ Sebastian 14:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

SebastianHelm, what I mean is that a difference between tailed z and normal z in MHG texts only comes about in the nineteenth century. The Bibliotheca Augustana is probably the easiest place to look online, but it's not unusual among editions. If you have a look at anything put out by Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, de Gruyter, or Reclam they all simply print <z>. Check out Middle High German#Writing system for a brief summary on the work of Karl Lachmann to alter MS spellings to conform to an idealized MHG. Here are few scholarly examples online: [1], [2]. The first is a scholarly edition of Minnesang. The second is a scholarly edition of Parzival, with spellings on the page I've linked "widersaz" "kraz" "ez" etc. On the next page we have "verdrüzze" "nazzeten". See also the quote from Braune's grammar I've added at the bottom of the thread.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

@Pfold:, you’re the only other person I know here who is knowledgeable about MHG - what do you think?—Ermenrich (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

No, ȥ doesn't belong here - it isn't used in historical texts, only in scholarship.--Pfold (talk) 13:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The original proposal to add ȥ to the inventory of Unicode characters has two references: Karl Weinhold, Gustav Ehrismann, & Hugo Moser, Kleine mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (Stuttgart: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1972); and Albert Bachmann, Mittelhochdeutsches Lesebuch (Zürich: Beer & Cie., 1970).

Unicode encodes abstract characters not visible glyphs. If there is a Unicode character ȥ that was encoded to represent that MHG sound and you want a character that is different from basic Latin z (we probably don't want that), the Unicode character encoded for that purpose should be used. What readers see is a matter of which font they use. (For PDF production I occasionally edit existing fonts to change the glyphic appearance of just one character that seems unsatisfactory.) If another character such as tailed z is used things radically change, search engines won't be able to find what users are looking for, character conversions (e.g. to allcaps) may yield strange results, etc. I strongly advise against using tailed z; it's better to illustrate the typical glyphic appearance with an additional graphic than to use the wrong Unicode character. (BTW, Unicode's character names don't serve the purpose of determining a character's glyphic appearance or semantics. Following Unicode's stability policy they are immutable, and even if the are misleading, plain wrong, or misspelled, they won't ever be changed. Actually, the history of Unicode is a history of character naming errors.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow - the convention outside of some grammars and dictionaries is almost always just to represent MHG <z> (whether pronounced [s] or [ts]) as simple <z>. Cf. this from Paul-Schröbler-Wiehl-Grosse's MHG grammar: Der ebenfalls stl. Reibelaut <ʒ> [...] wird <z> oder, um eine Verwechslung mit dem Affrikata-Zeichen <z> zu vermeiden, in Grammatiken und Handbüchern, seltner in Textausgaben, als geschwanztes <ʒ> geschrieben...--Ermenrich (talk) 14:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

What is meant is that ȥ is the right character irrespective of the glyphs in a font. There is nothing that prevents the gylph used to visualise the character ȥ from being identical with the glyph used for ʒ. (Certain characters look the same in most fonts: AΑА; əǝә; aɑ [=italicised aɑ]; etc.) Choice of the correct character is determined by semantics only, and never by glyph design. If you have a font with a glyph you don't want for a certain character, look for another font, alter the font you have, or ask me to do so. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S.: Above I wrote "we probably don't want that" (don't "want a character that is different from basic Latin z"), so this can't be what you were asking. I am not in favour of using ȥ in this article. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah, OK! Thanks LiliCharlie, I'm not feeling the best so I guess I just got a little confused! Thanks for the offer, there might be something that comes up.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Usage before history?

It strikes me as potentially more useful to our readers if we explain how eszett is currently used before launching into its history. Do you agree? My main problem with moving the usage section up is that it's basically completely unreferenced now. Can we use the official rules to reference it or does that count as wp:PRIMARY?--Ermenrich (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with moving the section ahead of history; it makes no sense that it's currently even behind the Keyboards section. (Possibly the section #Is it still in use? was created because the usage section was after the historical sections.[3]) I presume by “the official rules” you mean the Aktualisierte Fassung des amtlichen Regelwerks entsprechend den Empfehlungen des Rats für deutsche Rechtschreibung 2016, §25f and possibly the 3. Bericht des Rats für deutsche Rechtschreibung 2011–2016, page 27 , which are currently already used elsewhere (at least since 2017). Since nobody has protested against them, I don't think it likely that anyone would have a problem with that. Besides, I understand the intention of wp:PRIMARY to ensure that “Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources.” Both of these are not an issue here. ◅ Sebastian 15:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

+1. This is not article History of ß, so let's move history after current use. After all, who would start an article on the Latin letter a with the details of its development from Mesopotamia to web typography instead of saying that's what we have and how we use it now? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure about the Orthography Council's original rules, but aren't their interpretations by dictionary makers "citable" secondary (though perhaps not strictly academic) sources? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

"Sulzbacher form"

I have yet to see any reference to this term in the secondary literature. Can anyone confirm this isn't a Wikipedia-ism?--Ermenrich (talk) 19:39, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

So far I've found this reference on a blog but that doesn't strike me as a reliable source. It's claim The roman form appears to have been first introduced in the 1660s by a printer in Sulzbach, a place that is commemorated in the name by which its design was later known also contradicts the information I've seen on its use in Roman type. The usage of "Sulzbacher form on deWiki also isn't sourced. I have a suspicion it isn't a real term unless someone can point to its use in secondary lit - it doesn't show up in either of the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch articles I've read recently, even when they discuss the shape of Eszett.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems Sulzbacher Form is a traditional term among typographers. This web page has a scan from 1903 in which the Zeitschrift für Deutschlands Buchdrucker uses it. For more uses by typographers, see for instance typografie.info, typography.com and typography.guru. And Michael Everson who was responsible for many script/character additions to Unicode uses it in his recent proposal to add a Middle Scots letter that visually resembles some designs of ß. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:49, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

P.S.: We already reference Mark Jamra (2006) who uses the term Sulzbacher Form and also shows the scan from the Zeitschrift für Deutschlands Buchdrucker of 1903. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 02:56, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, LiliCharlie, I can use that to add citations where there currently are none hopefully!--Ermenrich (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Fortunately we don't have a template that's named after me yet. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Someone had better start working on that ;-).--Ermenrich (talk) 18:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Opening image?

ẞ

ß

Could anyone explain the purpose of the first box in the article (reproduced right). The image box that follows it would come up a lot better in search engines. It just looks like clutter to me but regular editors of this article may see a value in it? (If it must stay, then surely it should contain serif as well as sans-serif samples? And a caption?) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:41, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it looks better - I think that the old image predates the official capital form. Misunderstood. I believe the first image is just to illustrate the standard letter forms, in line with other articles on letters.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:55, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Picking A at random, the layout is rather different. Not necessarily better, but certainly different and arguably more informative. But I'll drop it. (Most articles have oddities that made sense ten years ago and have just become part of the furniture and nobody even notices them any more. I thought that this might be one such.) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:34, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you have an improvement don’t let me stop you!—Ermenrich (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Undiscussed move

@Artemis Andromeda: can you please discuss and give the reasoning why you think this page should be moved to Sharp S? I personally disagree and doubt you can find many sources that support such a move.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

"Eszett" might be a better name than just the character, but I do not think "sharp S" is widely used.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Or none of the above. The symbol itself is somewhat recognised outside Germany (in street signs in movies, like Berliner Straße, which give clue as to its purpose), but its formal names hardly at all. Just leave it alone and let the redirect system handle the very few [I suspect] cases where people search using the formal name. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:26, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Role of computers in requiring a capital ß

It is pretty obvious that Windows case-insensitive filenames are why a standard organization that resisted for 100 years gave in in the year 2004 and said a capital ß is a real character that required an encoding. Difficult to find a source though, but pretty easy to document that lots of software assumed "uppercase" would result in the same number of code points and also that it would assume the new code points are different than the "lowercase" ones. This is also why there is a capital ÿ. Spitzak (talk) 18:54, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Look, you need to find a source that actually states that capital eszett was primarily developed or necessary because of computers - so far you've provided WP:UNSOURCED text, then provided a source that does not say that this is why a capital developed, and most recently a source that does not even mention ß at all. What you're doing appears to be WP:original research and WP:synthesis, neither of which are allowed. The fact that this appears to be obvious to you does not mean it is so, and if it is so obvious you should be able to produce a source that says so. Sources that happen to mention issues with capitalizing ß in word processing (or general assumptions made by programs when capitalizing text) are not replacements for an actual source stating that those issues caused the adoption of a capital form (particularly when people have been talking about developing one for over a hundred years).--Ermenrich (talk) 21:48, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Just a small suggestion

Currently the article title is the lowercase version of the letter, could we change it to the uppercase? It's small but it's like having the article for Ÿ be ÿ imo. Aoscf77 (talk) 23:30, 5 December 2023 (UTC)